ess
than two months before invading Iraq, George W. Bush fretted that his
war plans could be disrupted if United Nations weapons inspectors
succeeded in gaining Saddam Hussein’s full cooperation, possibly leaving
Bush “looking weak,” according to notes written by a secretary to
British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The notes, taken by Blair’s personal secretary
Matthew Rycroft, were included in a new edition of Lawless World,
a book by University College professor Philippe Sands. The notes on the
Jan. 30, 2003, phone call between Bush and Blair were reviewed by the
New York Times, which said they were marked secret and personal. [NYT,
Oct. 14, 2005]

At the time, Blair wanted Bush to seek a second
resolution from the U.N. Security Council that would have judged Iraq to
be in violation of U.N. disarmament demands and would have authorized
military action. According to the notes, Bush agreed that “it made sense
to try for a second resolution, which he would love to have.”

But Bush’s deeper worry was that chief U.N. arms
inspector Hans Blix would conclude that Hussein’s government was
cooperating in the search for weapons of mass destruction, thus delaying
or blocking U.S.-led military action. Bush’s “biggest concern was
looking weak,” the British document said.

Blix indeed did judge that Iraq was cooperating
with the inspectors, who weren’t finding any WMD even at sites
pinpointed by U.S. intelligence.

With the U.N. inspectors coming up empty and
other U.S. claims about Iraq’s WMD falling apart, Bush ditched the
idea of seeking a second U.N. resolution authorizing use of military
force. Instead, Bush began to pressure the U.N. inspectors to leave Iraq
and Blix’s team prepared to withdraw.

“Although the inspection organization was now
operating at full strength and Iraq seemed determined to give it prompt
access everywhere, the United States appeared as determined to replace
our inspection force with an invasion army,” Blix wrote in his memoir,
Disarming Iraq.

War Rationales

On March 19, 2003, Bush launched the invasion.
After three weeks of fighting, U.S.-led forces toppled Hussein’s
government and Bush’s popularity ratings soared.

For weeks, the U.S. triumphalism over the Iraq
victory trumped any lingering questions about the invasion. Even the
failure to find WMD didn’t dampen the enthusiasm much. But as Iraq slid
into chaos and insurgents began to kill American soldiers, Bush moved to
shore up his justifications for war by reconstructing the pre-war
history.

On July 14, 2003, less than four months after the
invasion, Bush
said about Hussein, “we gave him
a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And,
therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from
power.”

In the following months, Bush repeated this claim
in slightly varied forms. On Jan. 27, 2004, Bush said, “We went to the
United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution – 1441 –
unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy
your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such
programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not
let us in.”

Though American journalists had witnessed the
U.N.’s search of Iraq’s WMD, no one in the national press corps
challenged Bush’s historical revisionism. Meanwhile, some of Bush’s
defenders argued that the absence of WMD didn’t mean that Bush was a
liar, only that he was misled by faulty intelligence.

At Consortiumnews.com, we began citing Bush’s
post-invasion falsehoods about Iraq not letting the U.N. inspectors in
as proof that Bush had no qualms about lying. Indeed, the evidence
pointed to a long-term Bush strategy of preventing any serious
investigation of Iraq’s alleged WMD stockpiles so as not to remove this
central rationale for war. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “President
Bush, With the Candlestick.”]

British Papers

In that sense, the newly disclosed British notes –
like the earlier Downing Street Memo showing that Bush wanted the
intelligence to be “fixed” around his Iraq policy – simply add more
weight to the already strong case on Bush’s duplicity.

Far from not knowing that Hussein had let the U.N.
inspectors in, Bush expressed fears in the Jan. 30, 2003, conversation
that the inspectors would secure full cooperation from the Iraqi
government – and that might frustrate his invasion plans. Bush was
aware, too, that Blair believed that a second U.N. resolution was needed
to authorize military action.

Bush’s Iraq War deceptions also continue to the
present, including during Bush’s Oct. 6 speech in which he exaggerated
both al-Qaeda’s capabilities and its goals in a new effort to scare the
American people into supporting his policies. [See Consortiumnews.com’s
“’Al-Qaeda
Letter’ Belies Bush’s Iraq Claims.”]

One constant throughout this troubled chapter of
American history seems to be that Bush puts above all other concerns his
avoidance of “looking weak” or being proved wrong. But, arguably,
the cause of helping Bush avoid accountability and making him look tough
has cost the lives of nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands
of Iraqis.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from
Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at
secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine,
the Press & 'Project Truth.'

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